


purple sky

by redreys



Series: the adventures of bi jon [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Coming Out, Gen, I love them v much, POV First Person, also could be interpreted as ship btw, first time someone comes out to jon!, writing yet another. accidental connection with stranger fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-13 18:06:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28907547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redreys/pseuds/redreys
Summary: “i am bisexual,” i whisper, and it’s exaggerated in tone. i sound like a tired elementary school teacher reading the climax of a children’s story.and then, our people saw the mighty dragon.and then, to no one’s surprise, levi turned out to be bisexual.you blink at me. “oh.” there’s a small pause, the time it takes you to nod slowly, as if gathering evidence. “oh, well.” you stare back at me, at last. “me too?”adrenaline takes the better of me. my whole body shakes and i drop the dice i’ve been holding this whole time as a lucky charm. i think i forgot i even had it. when it rolls onto the table, i keep myself from checking which number it landed on. “is that a question? cause if so… yeah, probably.”
Relationships: Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist & Original Male Character(s)
Series: the adventures of bi jon [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2121003
Comments: 6
Kudos: 15
Collections: bi jon sims celebration





	purple sky

**Author's Note:**

> writing this fic for [jon sims bi month](https://jonsimsbipride.tumblr.com/), prompt first time! specifically, first time someone comes out to jon. this is written in the first person, all lowercase, from the pov of my oc. it is also directly addressed To Jon. i don't know why. don't ask me. hope you enjoy!

i try to look at you when you turn around to ask a waitress for some water, but you are too lost in your head to see me, even as i sit in front of you.

maybe that’s fine. i _think_ that’s fine, at least.

we are the only ones left sitting at this table, and i’m sure i’ll get your attention, eventually. i don’t wanna be presumptuous, i am not demanding anything. it’s okay if this doesn’t happen. i did plan it, i did _hope_ for it, but i am not about to push it if you aren’t in the mood for surprises. my plans are so fucking dumb anyway.

there’s a lot of red in this room, i don’t know if you have noticed. i don’t like red, usually, but i can get behind this shade of it. it’s not aggressive, it’s not _intense_. it’s toned down, discreet. i stare at the wall ahead of me and imagine the voice it’d have if it were capable of speaking. it can only echo my own thoughts with the tone and warmth of a boring side character that has two scenes in a coming of age movie.

your shirt is red, too, but i can’t bring myself to assign it a voice. it might end up sounding a little too much like yours.

right now, you are going through your notes (which are _way_ worse than mine, and that’s saying a lot) and you seem to be trying to fix them, somehow. you are rewriting sentences and crossing out names, over and over again, and i don’t know how much that helps. this stuff we are studying is one of the last things we’re gonna have to memorize in high-school. i don’t care much about it, to be honest, but you clearly take it to heart. perhaps you aren’t sure if you should let it go already, or preserve this struggle till you are ready for the next road.

there are three empty chairs between us, and i have to wonder: if those were still full, would you have an easier time working through this? i honestly think that if you had to pick a classmate to spend the last forty minutes of extra-study-time with, you would not have chosen me. i am too quiet, and the things i say when i do speak are often off-topic and a bit weird.

i am aware that that description can fit you, too (you are plenty odd, when you set your mind to it) but, well… you are more charismatic than i am. this is not to diminish myself or project my insecurities on you, i just think you are cool. cooler than me, in some ways, though maybe i am cooler than you in others.

what i’m trying to say is that it’s easier to imagine what you might act like once your defences are gone, and i’m afraid that, to you, i only look strange.

you know, when our classmates got up, in spite of all the prep talk i had been giving myself, i almost ended up following them. part of me genuinely wanted to leave you alone to your forty minutes of extra time, mumbling something about not being much help anyway. ‘i came to this study session to _get_ help, not to give it—i’m not good enough for that.’

what eventually convinced me to stay was a sense of respect, i think. i didn’t like the idea of being so intimidated by you. this thing i’m doing—this… confession, or however you are gonna call it—is only gonna work if i approach you like a friend. a stranger, if you will. maybe something in between. i owe you the chance to be my equal, not some kind of model i am already setting up to fail.

plus, i guess it’s a lot easier, to close your eyes and forbid yourself from moving. if i have to do the brave thing, i’d rather find a way of doing it like this. ‘stay’ feels like an easier promise to give in to. ‘come with me’ requires more steps.

“hey, jon?” i say, to break the ice, surprising myself with how easy the question comes, and you look up, marginally confused. your hair is tied up in a messy bun and it looks strangely good on you. you frown, and i think that maybe that crush i had on you for about ten months hasn’t _entirely_ died off. that’s okay, though. why wouldn’t it be.

i don’t know how else to put it, so i’ll put it bluntly: i think you are visibly kind even when you aren’t easy to understand, and that makes you a good person to have a crush on.

nobody is easy, mind you, and i know fuck-all about social clues anyway, but sometimes you get slightly sharp. like you angle your body in a way that protects it, hide your eyes from the wind so that the cold won’t hurt them too much. some people read that wrong, i fear. see you as a riddle and then give up mid-way through solving it, because, surprise surprise, there’s no solution.

all that is just a reaction, something that tells me little about what you believe in and what you are like, but you do have these moments when your kindness becomes obvious. a girl you seemed to _detest_ once lost her wallet in a library and you helped her look for it for an entire hour. you have known me for four years and though you might not remember my name, you wave your hand whenever we bump into each other. i can tell you would stop to help me if i fell.

i don’t want to sit here and make you up in my head. i am no more a stranger than those people who judge you are. i just mean: you seem nice. i want to believe that my instincts are correct.

“what is it?” you ask, still frowning, watching the pen you hold in your hand move up and down under your fingers, and i don’t quite know what i should say, what’s the correct conversation-opener for this very peculiar topic.

“can i tell you something?”

my voice sounds a bit silly. fuck if i hate it. it doesn’t match the colour of my thoughts, but i’d be okay with that if people could tell and appreciate its comic effect, the stark contrast between the orange/green of my inner monologue and the deep blue of the dumb stuff i say out loud.

“what? why?” you ask, instinctively, and i laugh. maybe that’s not the most appropriate of responses, but yeah. i guess i laugh.

“it’s nothing concerning,” i say, and the lines on your face smooth a bit, like you are trying to decide which emotion to land on. “it has nothing to do with you, i just… wanted to tell you.”

“we don’t know each other, levi.”

oh, so you _do_ remember my name! that’s nice to hear.

“but we do, _jon_.”

my tone is ironic, a play on the fact that if we both know each other’s name, we can pretend to know the rest, too. i am afraid that’s lost on you, up until you lean in with your elbows on the table, weirdly at ease, and smile. “no, we do not?”

i stop myself short of insisting, saying _we could, though_ , and, instead, i smile back. if i do it a little hesitantly, you’ll have to forgive me. i have never been granted the privilege of handling your joy alone, and i’m afraid of breaking it.

“i am asking you if i can tell you a secret.”

you part your lips, preparing to protest in some way.

“i thought maybe you could be my test run. i want to tell you this thing first ‘cause there’s no pressure between us. easier to let out secrets like that.”

a small lock of hair has escaped the hold of your scrunchie, and, as i speak, it falls in front of your eyes. you blow it away absentmindedly. it doesn’t work, so you raise your hand to hide it behind your ear.

all the while, you keep your attention fixed on me. it’s less awkward than i thought it would be.

“do you… _want_ to be my test run?” i ask, and you turn your head. just slightly. evaluating the thought. evaluating me, an acquaintance you never had to think about, because i never had the courage to make myself known.

“sure,” you say. you don’t sound sure. it’s okay, though. you don’t need to play the part perfectly.

that’s my cue to speak, right? i know because my heart starts racing and my fingers stop playing with my shirt. this is too abrupt for middle grounds and i have never known how to start from beginnings, so i might as well jump right into it and skip preambles.

usually, i do a good job of pretending i feel chill about everything always, but maybe, this time, you can see me shaking.

“i am bisexual,” i whisper, and it’s exaggerated in tone. i sound like a tired elementary school teacher reading the climax of a children’s story. _and then, our people saw the mighty dragon._

_and then, to no one’s surprise, levi turned out to be bisexual._

you blink at me. “oh.” there’s a small pause, the time it takes you to nod slowly, as if gathering evidence. “oh, well.” you stare back at me, at last. “me too?”

adrenaline takes the better of me. my whole body shakes and i drop the dice i’ve been holding this whole time as a lucky charm. i think i forgot i even had it. when it rolls onto the table, i keep myself from checking which number it landed on. “is that a question? cause if so… yeah, probably.”

i think i must pass this feeling onto you, or else i don’t know how to explain the way you push the chair closer to the table, giggling, hiding your cheek in your left hand. not flattered, but endeared. almost poking fun at your own reaction.

“is that your evaluation, then?”

“yeah,” i reply, immediately, and i am giggling, too. it feels a little silly, to be honest. premature. i kind of love that it does. “i am the owner of every ‘am i gay’ quiz you have ever seen or heard of.”

you are trying to regain your composure, and are only minimally successful. you still look cute, obviously. i’m not about to complain.

“does the job pay well?”

i shake my head. “it’s not a job. it’s a talent.”

that makes you laugh a bit louder. i have made you laugh more in the span of the last three minutes than during the entire time i’ve known you, jonathan sims. it’s a good trophy to earn, even if i’m late to the game.

“well,” you say, “congratulations.”

“for my talent?”

oh, god, have mercy on me. you smile again.

“no, i mean- am i the first person you’ve come out to?”

that’s a difficult question to answer. i’ve said ‘i don’t know’ before, and ‘yeah, maybe’, and ‘thank you, i’ll think about it’ but never ‘i’m bisexual’. not out loud and not to someone who would listen.

“yes,” i say, simply, and part of me expects you to ask: why me?

it would be a long story to tell. why _you_? well, my motive should already be obvious, but if you need more: my brain likes focusing on your silhouette when i see you in the distance, and my heart thinks you are a good, welcoming person. you never seemed straight to me, for one reason or another, which was definitely a plus, and i am one of those people that would rather risk it all on a hunch than think a complicated conversation through.

is that enough for you? does that justify the fact that after spending numerous sleepless nights trying to move through this labyrinth and find my first opening, the face of a stranger was the best answer i could find?

i don’t know, jon. maybe it’s you because of the way you are looking at me right now. it’s you because even though you aren’t necessarily staring at my eyes, you manage to make me feel seen.

i believed you wouldn’t take this lightly, just as i believed you wouldn’t take it too personally. you never met me as anything else than a name, and now that i am opening the door, i get to do it with my actual face.

“was it nice?” you ask, cutting through my thoughts.

demanding explanations can be complex, and maybe the _why me?_ scares you, too, but there’s something about what you just said that makes me happy. i appreciate that _this_ is what you want to know.

“yeah, it was good. was it nice to hear it?”

finally, you settle back into the chair and breathe in deeply. i don’t pay as much attention to my movements, but i think I breathe in, too. it’s not just a repetition or an echo, it’s more of a consequence of the connection we are building. a symptom of the ease i know we are both feeling.

that sounds cheesy, i am aware. sometimes things _are_ cheesy, though, and i like to acknowledge them when they happen.

“not bad,” you reply, all serious, and then look at me and relax your shoulders. something in you turns genuine. open, like a blooming flower. “i often forget that i am not the only one who feels… uncertain. people have come out to me before, but not- not like this. not unprompted, not like-”

“you mean i reminded you of yourself?” i interrupt, disrupting your sentences, and you nod. it’s an easy guess to jump to, and it feels nice to say out loud.

“a bit. not necessarily because of _how_ you said it? but still, there was something there.”

there’s no reason for me to do this now, but, maybe out of embarrassment, i reach out to recover my dice where it landed. i don’t know if you noticed it falling, but you don’t ask me about it now, so maybe you did.

i rolled a two, apparently. low number, but two is my favorite. i’ll let it slide.

“i am glad you saw something in me,” i reply, still looking at my dice, and you nudge me with your foot under the table to catch my attention.

it’s a cute gesture, jon. i think it makes me blush.

“any luck?” you ask, and i shrug, faking nonchalance.

“i don’t know. it depends.”

it makes me a little speechless, the way you ease yourself into the conversation. how genuine your interest feels, even if it’s only been there for the span of a couple of minutes and it’s about a detail most would find meaningless.

“depends on what?” you ask, and i don’t really know how to answer that. there are maybe normal ways to go about moving on with this conversation and types of small-talk i could unravel to try and keep this pleasant, but i’m not good with all of that.

wordlessly, i put the dice on the table and i extend my hand to you, as though meeting you for the first time. you raise your eyebrows, waiting for an explanation, but i am already shaking my head. _uh-uh. not gonna give you one._

to your credit, you don’t look confused. just surprised. curious to see where this will go. it takes you a couple of seconds, but eventually you meet me in the middle and take my hand. the gesture is easy. it feels like an every-day habit, like getting onto a bus or folding laundry.

“hello,” i say, simply.

“hello,” you echo, with the same light-blue tone, and i am pleased that it matches mine.

on instinct, i lower our hands so now they rest on the table. it must look like we are just holding hands for the sake of it now, and, to be honest, that guess would not be so far off from the truth.

“i am trying to think of a promise to make,” i whisper, a bit awkwardly, and you smile, dice entirely forgotten.

“why?”

that’s a reasonable question to pose now, and i knew it was coming, but i hate that i can’t manage to phrase it like i want to. for a while, i just close my eyes, fumbling for the right words, trying to put them in the correct order, and then, after maybe twenty seconds of interrupted silence, i open my eyes again and say:

“ever tried to turn the sky purple in a lucid dream?”

my answer surprises you, but you seem to like it. appreciate it for what it is. understand that it’s a bridge to something that i find complicated to express.

“i don’t have lucid dreams, usually.”

“well,” i start, locking my eyes on the brown of one of your rings, “i do, often, and when that happens, my first instinct is trying to mark the moment. if i turn houses upside down, maybe it’s more likely that i’ll remember the dream when i wake up. it sounds strange, i know, but what i mean is that i want to mark this moment, too. make a promise that i won’t forget.”

your hand tightens around mine. it’s a short lived movement, blink and you miss it, but it’s there.

“promise me you’ll watch a movie with me tomorrow?”

in spite of how suggestive this all might seem, the tone of your voice when you ask that sentence sounds nothing but genuine to me. i look back up at you, and i see that reflected in your eyes. the light behind them isn’t playful as much as it is pleading. a peace offer proclaimed over two wars that have nothing to do with each other.

you are tired, i can see that in your expression. i do my best to mask it, but i’m tired, too.

“what if we get up and just- do that now?”

you are still holding my hand when you nod. i don’t know if i’ll remember what movie we will end up watching, but the waitress brings us water just as i open my mouth to suggest a title, and when i feel her coming up from behind us i fucking _scream_ like a little kid watching a particularly intense cartoon.

i bet i’ll remember the way you apologize for me, quickly and awkwardly, and the way we both burst out laughing when she is gone.

the question comes up in my mind ( _where are you going to college, by the way?_ ) but I don't think it matters as much as maybe it should. i think i am okay with remembering just today, even if it is all we have.

**Author's Note:**

> as always, comments are appreciated, remus thank you for being a wonderful beta, and you can all find me on tumblr as [mxrspider](https://mxrspider.tumblr.com/)


End file.
